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The final Latin exam for Matura students is having to be rewritten after some erudite thieves broke into a secondary school in Salzburg on Thursday night and opened an envelope containing the exam papers.

The Education Ministry confirmed that the papers had been stolen and said that the Zentralmatura Latin exam, scheduled for May 13th, would still take place but that students will be given different test questions to the one on the stolen paper.

Police said they believe the burglars broke into the school looking for valuables but said that the safe containing the exam papers had been broken into and that the packet containing the Latin exam had been ripped open - and thus is now considered invalid.

All other exam papers were “complete and untouched” a statement from the Education Ministry said.

The Federal Institute for Educational Research (Bifie) will now write up another exam paper and all secondary schools that teach the six-year Latin course will receive an encrypted memory stick with the new exam paper on Tuesday evening, which they will be able to download and print on Wednesday morning, before the exam. The exam will start a little later than planned, at 10am.

According to Bifie 700 students are affected, at 115 schools.

A spokeswoman for Salzburg police told the Kronen Zeitung newspaper that three schools had been broken into in the city of Salzburg on Thursday night. She said there were no clues as to the identity of the burglars.

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